In this region he notes that the balsam fir of Canada was abundant, the tree which provided the gum that cured Cartier's expedition of scurvy.

Some of the natives with whom they now came into contact were remarkable for their grey eyes, a feature often observed amongst the Amerindians of the North Pacific coast.
"On observing some people before us, our guides hastened to meet them, and, on their approach, one of them stepped forward with an axe in his hand.

This party consisted only of a man, two women, and the same number of children.

The eldest of the women, who probably was the man's mother, was engaged, when we joined them, in clearing a circular spot, of about five feet in diameter, of the weeds that infested it; nor did our arrival interrupt her employment, which was sacred to the memory of the dead.

The spot to which her pious care was devoted contained the grave of a husband and a son, and whenever she passed this way she always stopped to pay this tribute of affection." By this time, exposure to wind and sun, the attacks of mosquitoes and flies, the difficulty of washing or of changing their clothes, had made all the Europeans of the party as dark in skin colour as the Amerindians, so that such natives as they met who had the courage to examine them, did so with the intention of discovering whether they had any white skin left.